• IBM i, Watson & Bluemix: The REST Of The Story

  June 21, 2017 Dan Burger

  Integrated Web Services is nothing new for IBM i. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing new in Web services. A couple of years ago, IBM introduced Bluemix, an integration framework that, among other things, allows applications on other systems to connect with business logic running on i. The Bluemix tooling was designed to consume REST APIs, which can be used to connect Watson and IBM i. That’s where the newness is evident.

  The plumbing that’s necessary to make these things happen is being built by the IBM i development team led by Tim Rowe, business architect for IBM i …

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• The Cognitive Systems/500 2018 Edition

  June 12, 2017 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  With the Power9 processor not coming to the IBM i and AIX platforms until sometime early in 2018, rather than right now as many of us were led to believe would be happening, we have some extra time on our hands. So we should all – including the executives who run IBM Systems and its subordinate Cognitive Systems division (formerly known as Power Systems) – take this opportunity to take a hard look at how the IBM i platform is packaged and priced and how a modern integrated platform should be architected.

  The IBM i customer base needs the Cognitive …

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• BCD Presto Mobilizes Green Screen To Web App Dev

  May 24, 2017 Dan Burger

  Not every green-screen RPG application needs to be modernized. Some need it more than others. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The same can be said for desktop apps. They don’t all have to be capable of rendering on mobile devices, but some need it more than others. Now BCD Software is helping in the decision making process by bringing responsive development capabilities to its version 7 release of Presto.

  Presto, of course, is BCD’s most popular modernization tool, while responsive design is the capability to design Web pages that display on any device desktop or mobile with a single …

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• CNX Kickstarts Development with Valence 5.1

  May 24, 2017 Alex Woodie

  A new release of the Valence Framework from CNX will enable IBM i shops to get more Web programming and modernization work done with even less effort than before.

  The Chicago-based company has been speaking the “less is more” mantra since the 2014 launch of Valence 4.0, one of the first releases that included Nitro add-on tools that handle tasks on behalf of the user. After all, why should the user get bogged down in the intricacies of coding JavaScript when software can do it instead?

  Nitro’s auto-coding capabilities are once again front-and-center in Valence 5.1, which CNX launched …

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• Top Ten New IBM i RFEs

  May 22, 2017 Alex Woodie

  Should IBM open source its database drivers, or add support for .NET? Should it add the latest SSL ciphers to IBM i 7.1? These are some of the changes that it has received through its new Web-based requests for enhancement (RFE) program on its developerWorks site.

  The new RFE functionality is only a few months old, but it’s already attracting the attention of IBM i professionals who want IBM to change things about the stack. It’s also getting attention from other IBM i pros who get to vote on them.

  Here are the top ten RFEs so far, ranked by …

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• Guru: Confessions Of A Recovering RDi Outline Addict

  May 22, 2017 Susan Gantner

  As an unabashed RDi fan, my list of “favorite features” is pretty long, but right up near the top of the list has always been the Outline view for RPG IV. It was Outline that finally got me to move to WDSC (RDi’s predecessor) from its predecessor, CODE (a.k.a., CODE/400) many years ago.

  I’ve long been amazed at the number of RDi users who say they don’t use Outline – some don’t even have it in their RSE perspective any more. I have always suspected that’s because they closed it by accident long ago and never had a chance to …

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• Not So Hard To See i To i

  May 1, 2017 Dan Burger

  You’re not the only oyster in the stew. The IBM i community is a combination of unique ingredients that make over-generalizations risky business. The landscape looks different depending on whether your view is from the valley or the mountain. That’s why I like to talk with people with experiences that are different from my own. We learn from different perspectives.

  Mike Scanlon has worked most of his 30-plus years in the IT business in eastern Iowa. He came out of college with a software development education that emphasized COBOL. His career path eventually led to a software development job with …

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• Native Open Source: Why It’s Time for IBM i

  April 19, 2017 Alex Woodie

  When you think about open source software for IBM i, chances are good you envision PHP applications or Ruby code or even Node.js, all of which were adapted from other platforms to run on IBM i. But there’s a new movement afoot to spur more development of open source software that runs natively on IBM i.

  Make no mistake about it: getting PHP, Ruby, Python, Node.js and the others to run on IBM i is a good move by IBM. The work Big Blue has done to bring these technologies to IBM i – much of which is delivered …

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• ARCAD Strengthens IBM i Modernization Portfolio

  April 19, 2017 Dan Burger

  Two IBM i modernization products have been added to IBM’s eConfig ordering system, signaling an increased emphasis helping customers move forward on the modernization path. The additions come from ARCAD Software and pertain to the conversion of fixed-format RPG source code to free-format code and the analysis of existing IBM i applications.

  The conversion of legacy code to modern free form syntax is accomplished by the ARCAD Converter product. The process is recognized as a progressive step toward RPG code that is more easily understood by programmers from outside the RPG world and, therefore, more easily integrated and more easily …

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• Secrets Of IBM i Magic Act Revealed

  April 17, 2017 Dan Burger

  Can IBM i shops find a way to replace their RPG-oriented staffs with magicians? The answer, in many cases, is that they already have. The RPG staff members are the magicians. They’ve abra-ka-dabra-ed their way to doing more with less for something like 30 years. The clever companies employing these magicians have parlayed this IT staff magic into new technology investments that perpetuate the more for less phenomenon.

  One of those technologies is the modern managed services provider, which causes system management to disappear and gives the IT magicians something new to work on . . . like database modernization, …

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